SINGAPORE — “Welcome home, Andrew.”

Signing off a profile within the exhibition catalogue of “Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World,” the words of writer Tan Siok Sun embodied the sensation within the Asian metropolis because the Paris-based designer, who’s deemed “Singapore’s best fashion export,” made his homecoming.

“This exhibition celebrates Andrew [Gn’s] profession as a global and Singaporean designer. It explores how Andrew and his body of labor further the notion of a world Singapore, a small Singapore but [a nation that] punches above its weight,” said Asian Civilizations Museum and Peranakan Museum director Kennie Ting. “And it celebrates Andrew’s unique ability to craft objects of great beauty from the mixing of materials, motifs, silhouettes and sensibilities drawn from East and West.”

Because the island nation shakes off the last of the COVID-19 pandemic and visitors — mainly Western and South Asian for now — make their return to town, it felt just like the moment to indicate how “cultures and civilizations have all the time been in touch with connecting and mutually interacting with one another,” and “that we don’t exist in silos and never have,” Ting told WWD.

Beyond a celebration of Gn’s profession, this first-ever retrospective and his “gift to the [Singaporean] nation” donation of 160 pieces were also meant as a powerful signal of Singapore’s desire to spearhead discussions on “how Southeast Asia modified the world, how [Singapore] is a conduit to the world slightly than this concept that [any particular nation or origin] is robust,” particularly in “this age of national posturing, on the geopolitical level,” Ting said.

Adding contemporary fashion design to the 100,000-strong archive of artifacts — only around 2 percent is exhibited at any time — can be a powerful signal that “civilizations don’t stop,” he continued.

The Gn archive is the primary significant step in expanding the city-state’s national collection, as a part of an ambitious “Our SG Heritage Plan 2.0” launched earlier this month, said ACM and Peranakan Museum chairman Mark Lee.

In Lee’s eyes, the institution’s exploration of Asia’s history and position as a connecting global hub was “vital on the national and diplomatic level” because it signaled the country’s “spirit of openness to people and concepts from across Asia and the globe,” no matter their race or creeds.

Distinguished photographer Russel Wong found it “wonderful to see an entire body of labor and never judge an individual just by outfit.” However it was much more vital that the exhibition have a good time Gn and never only a legacy.

“That body of labor, if it doesn’t exist once you’re living, then you definately can’t show it. It’s good that you just’re still around and kicking it,” Wong said. “We now have a whole lot of years to spare, then people can still be inspired and [that] makes a whole lot of difference, especially here in Singapore, [which is] so academically driven and [where] the humanities will not be [seen as] something to take seriously.”

The opening section in Gn’s exhibition on the Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore’s national museum of Asian antiquities and ornamental arts, centered on his most up-to-date work and the “impact of [his work] on public visual identity,” Ting said.

“What we would like to bring out repeatedly is how contemporary [Gn] is,” said ACM’s senior curator Jackie Yoong, by starting with a plinth on Asia-based celebrities including Fan Bing Bing, Hong Kong’s Carina Lau or Liu Yu Xin, who wore a richly embroidered gold jacket for his performance on the Chinese Communist Party’s one centesimal anniversary gala in 2021, followed by a subset on European royals, akin to Denmark’s Crown Princess Mary, who wore a pink puff-sleeved number to King Charles III’s coronation reception for overseas guests at Buckingham Palace on May 5.

A 3rd plinth cements Gn’s presence on Western stages and screens, starting from a black minidress with pagoda shoulders worn by Lily Collins within the third season of “Emily in Paris” and a lace number seen on Emma Stone in “La La Land” to gowns worn by Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga.

To Yoong, this wide selection of profiles highlighted the way in which Gn’s designs were “utilized by celebrities to project glamour and likewise as a type of power dressing internationally,” with royals and first ladies in search of the designer’s classic elegance and famous faces interested in his ability to “strike that difficult balance between maximalism, opulence and yet being subtle.”

Further into the museum, accessible through galleries that explore the cultures and the various faiths intersecting within the region, Gn’s “East-West style that align with the stories that [the ACM] tells” is explored.

Intended as a circular narrative, the 2 galleries might be entered in several doors at either end. Stepping in from the left highlights the impact of Western art in his work, with a sweeping overview that runs from Madame de Pompadour and the Baroque period to the Viennese Secession movement, Claude Monet’s paintings and even the Swinging ’60s.

Entering via the proper door takes visitors into Gn’s heritage and interpretation of Asian cultural elements. Connecting East and West is a bit on the natural world, with the marine and floral world, in particularly the coral and butterfly motifs that he favors.

“We particularly think that it’s vital to begin the Asia side along with his ideas of Southeast Asia and where he comes from in Singapore,” said Yoong, highlighting a photograph of Gn’s grandmother Chen Mei Zhi in a conventional Peranakan outfit featuring a trio of “kerosang” brooch closures juxtaposed with a fall 2022 dress worn by Queen Rania of Jordan and its trio of bejeweled buttons.

Amongst a very powerful pieces within the 112 on display was an extended balloon-sleeved gown from his “Hope and Glory” fall 2021 collection, printed in chinoiserie motifs embroidered with glass beads. For Yoong, it epitomizes the back-and-forth between Eastern and Western gazes, with Gn reprising landscapes and figures from an English screen from his personal art collection, itself inspired by Chinese Coromandel screens.

Further mixing the 2 hemispheres of Gn’s creative identity was the soundtrack composed by Singaporean sonic artist Chong Li-Chuan, who used each Eastern and Western instruments.

Within the fifth and final section of the exhibition, Gn’s Parisian world is explored, through an evocation of his studio through embroidery research, collection sketches and textile swatches, in addition to a reproduction of the 1998 Colette window dedicated to his work, also visible from outside the museum.

Longtime friend Julia Shain-Hüsken, who met Gn within the mid-’90s and have become his first right hand in 1996, described meeting him as a “magical, joyous, delightful rush” and recalled how the designer was “all the time happy with his heritage, even at a young age.”

That much was clear during a later visit of the ACM’s sister institution, the Peranakan Museum, where the designer supplemented the docent’s explanations with gusto, adding colourful evocations of his family’s home, the traditions that underpinned anything from furniture selections to traditional jewelry, and details on specialized crafts.

A lot of these elements found themselves distilled into Gn’s work, alluded to in the shape of buttons, informing a collar shape or the way in which his silhouettes are layered.

Farfetch executive Elizabeth von der Goltz, who has known Gn for 20 years, praised his ability to “really understand the shopper” and offer designs so original that “you’re not normally going to walk right into a room full of women wearing the identical dress,” due to his talent for stylish designs.

For “Crazy Wealthy Asians” star Fiona Xie, Gn being “stuffed with fun, jolly and stuffed with love” is the wellspring of his creativity. “His work just jogs my memory of the great life,” she said.

“It’s very nice to see who wore these clothes and where, almost like milestones of history, and seeing the ability of fashion and garments, uniting every kind of nationalities, every kind of events,” she continued. “Like us being here, just celebrating humanity and celebrating life. That’s what fashion needs to be: fun and uniting people.”

In keeping with Judith Chung, a distinguished Singaporean retailer whose now-closed multilabel fashion boutique A Man and His Woman introduced the likes of Issey Miyake and Kenzo Takada to town, Gn’s body of labor skewed neither Eastern nor Western. Moderately, she was left impressed by the flexibility of the designs he has produced and “the extent of creativity that he has undergone in his works.”

And that is what the cultural institution hopes will permeate right into a recent audience and coming generation, with the addition of interactive elements akin to NFC bracelets used to virtually collect Gn’s signature motifs and switch them right into a digital outfit, or hands-on workshops to drape or create embellished paper collars.

In Gn’s sights are also the rising Asian creatives within the region. “I’ve all the time felt that that’s so vital for a museum because, first, fashion really draws younger people to the museum. And second, it also creates a way of training your next generation,” said the designer, who envisions his pieces as the beginning of a study collection that can draw students from the complete region.

“Our approach to working within the space of fashion is one where we cannot divorce ourselves from the industry and the community,” said Ting, highlighting a two-year effort that included the #SGFashionNow guerrilla pop-up exhibitions in collaboration with the national School of the Arts Singapore (SOTA), and other initiatives with the Singapore Fashion Council to advertise local contemporary designers.

“We’re all the time striving to search out these original narratives that is smart for us,” Ting said, noting that each private and non-private funding allowed for the event of narratives reflecting Singapore’s long heritage as a centuries-old port city and the vitality of the 50-year-old nation.

Private support is already flowing in, as evidenced by the ACM’s fundraising gala, celebrating the museum’s twenty fifth anniversary and attended by Singapore’s minister of culture, community and youth Edwin Tong; ambassador for Singapore to France Foo Teow Lee and predecessor Zainal Mantaha, who initiated the retrospective project; British high commissioner to Singapore Kara Owens; Farfetch’s vice chairman for Greater China Judy Liu, and figures from Singapore high society, like former actress and investment director Sharon Au.

The evening, which included musical performances by jazz star Alemay Fernandez, the Gamelan Singamurti ensemble and DJ Koflow, surpassed the initial high mark of 800,000 Singapore dollars (or $592,500) set by the organizers and will hit the 1.3 million Singapore dollar mark, in line with gala chair Paige Parker, who felt that fashion entering the museum was a milestone achievement.

“We’re grateful since it’s been an extended time coming for fashion to be relevant and [for] people to understand it for its own merit as a craft and an art form,” she said, joking that donors had “drunk the Kool-Aid” in that respect and lauding the panache Gn had dropped at the proceedings. “Without him, a celebration wouldn’t have been as sexy. Fashion all the time makes the whole lot sexier.”